If you use alcohol, nicotine or other drugs to help you cope with the challenges of your daily life, please read on. I wrote this for you.

I’m 71 now, with plenty of time to look back over my life and consider what I might have done differently, what I might have achieved, if I hadn’t been hooked on alcohol and nicotine.

It will be 15 years this October since I finally had my last drink and last cigarette and embraced a healthy lifestyle permanently. I wish I had learned how to do it much earlier; I could have made better decisions, been more available to others and achieved my highest potential in both my career and personal life.

Instead, I learned early about the short-term soothing effects of alcohol. By my teenage years, I was already dependent on it. I added a pack-a-day cigarette habit in my 40s and by the time I was in my 50s, I had chronic bronchitis and a drinking habit that was destroying my liver.

When I read about the legalization of marijuana, which I experimented with and found to be as mind-altering as alcohol, it worries me. We used to call it “getting wasted,” and there’s a good reason for that. It slows you down and makes everything seem OK, just fine, maybe even better and more fun than ever before – for a while. Who knows what it’s doing to young brains? Maximizing their potential? I doubt it.

A WASTED YOUTH

When I was living through my 20s, 30s and 40s, I didn’t realize that the opportunities to be the best mother I could be, or the best friend, or the best employee were not always going to be there. I had some modest success in my career, but I could have achieved much more. My children grew up and moved out, my friends came and went and my relationships never lasted.

Now that I can think clearly about all this, I realize that I wasted the many chances I had to achieve lasting happiness, to be a positive role model and to create and participate in a more fulfilling life.

I thought my addictions were making it easier for me to cope. Actually, they made it harder for me to cope. All those years I was creating my own uphill battle, adding to my everyday problems and challenges by diminishing my ability to think clearly, cope calmly and make sound decisions.

If you are using a substance that you think you need to cope with life’s ups and downs, now might be a good time to take an honest look at your habits and become aware of your usage and whether it is beginning to take over more and more of your thinking, blurring your ability to make good decisions, stealthily sapping your ability to thrive. This may be the time in your life to consider what you are risking: Your own future well-being and that of your loved ones. Is it worth it?

There are many ways to find help. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous help many, as well as local agencies and private counselors. I tried everything, but it wasn’t until I worked with Portland nutrition and fitness counselor Mike Foley on a two-year writing project that I was able to overcome the constant cravings and feel, for the first time, what it was like to be clean and sober every day.

RETURN TO NORMALCY

It didn’t happen overnight. I made several attempts to drink like a “normal” person, until I finally realized that feeling healthy and strong every day was better than any short-term blissfulness that an addictive substance could give me.

A person using doesn’t learn how to cope in a healthy way with whatever life throws at them. For me, learning to cope included healthy eating, regular exercise, meditation and awareness. Now when I face challenges and cope with them, I find courage and resourcefulness I didn’t know I had.

Life’s challenges don’t magically disappear when we quit using a harmful substance, but finding the inner strength to cope with them clean and sober is satisfying in a way that seems magical. I hope you find it, too.